Corlealackagh

Court Tomb

Corlealackagh (Giant's Grave) (Court Tomb) on The Modern Antiquarian, the UK & Ireland's most popular megalithic community website. 1 piece of folklore, plus information on many more ancient sites nearby and across the UK & Ireland.

Folklore

In a field belonging to Patrick McKenna, Corlealackagh, Castleblayney, there is a mound, or raised ground, containing huge boulders of stone, and here and there is an odd hawthorn bush, evidently of a very good age. The place is known as the "Giant's Grave" and is marked on the Sapper's map as such. The oldest man in the district never heard it called by any other name but he says that the position of the stones and boulders have been changed.

A number of men from the Archaeological Society Co Louth came to visit the place about fifteen years ago and locals helped them to dig down into the earth to see what they might find buried there. They misplaced the stones from their original position and left them scattered about. A few years later a gentleman called Rev. Fr. Rapmund[?] who was interested in such places secured a number of volunteer workers and undertook the task of digging down deep in the earth at this spot.

They laboured for days and only succeeded in unearthing flat stone slabs one after another till they had 13 unearthed. They again continued their work in the hope of reaching the body of the Giant which was perhaps cremated but no such treasure was ever found. The Rev. gentleman asked his volunteer band to replace the stone slabs just as they had found them, which they did. When the portion of the large stone boulders that was under the earth was uncovered it was discovered that there were strokes of different lengths on one of these boulders, and experts said that it was something in the Ogham language. The strokes or marks were copied to be translated into English but we cannot find any person to translate the message written in Ogham.

From year to year I pay a visit to the Giant's Grave, and I tell the children what I know about it and we have taken "snaps" of it. It is never ploughed or tilled by the man who owns the farm containing it, as there are several lone blackthorn bushes around it, and there is a belief in this district that any one who interferes or cuts down a lone bush will be afflicted for life, by having a "hump" grown on his back overnight.
Were it not for this belief, the farmer says he'd have used the stones for building purposes ere this.

From the Schools' Collection of the 1930s, now being digitised at Duchas.ie.